Guard Jesse Morgan’s appeal to join Temple after being expelled by UMass was reportedly denied by the NCAA because Morgan already has reached the five-year cap on his eligibility, the Daily Hampshire Gazette reported, leaving the Owls searching for backcourt help.

Morgan, who averaged 13.4 points per game this past season before being booted in January, came to UMass as a freshman nonqualifier and sat out his first year, then played three seasons with the Minutemen before opting to transfer.

Because Morgan would have to sit out the 2013-14 season per NCAA transfer rule, the 2014-15 season would qualify as a sixth year and thus is illegal in the NCAA's eyes.

The Morgan ruling could have an affect on how the NCAA proceeds with Memphis' Michael Dixon, who has transferred to Memphis following allegations of sexual assault that never were pursued. Dixon played three years at Missouri and did not play this past season after being indefinitely suspended by the team. It’s unclear if he earned any credits at Missouri in the 2012 fall semester, when his transfer was announced. If that's the case, then he may have to sit this season, too, and his five-year window will have closed.

Memphis will argue that Dixon’s situation is more like Maryland’s Dez Wells, who was expelled from Xavier despite not being charged with sexual assault. In Wells’ instance, the prosecutor in his case called Xavier’s punishment of Wells “fundamentally unfair” and the investigation “seriously flawed.” The NCAA apparently agreed with the prosecutor, allowing him to transfer from Xavier to College Park without having to sit out a season.

So here we have two cases where past precedent could come into play, with one favoring the athlete, and the other not.

All of which means trying to figure out which way the NCAA goes with Dixon is very much up in the air. That’s something that Memphis coach Josh Pastner isn’t fretting, despite a potential logjam in his backcourt.

“If the waiver goes through, we’ll make it all work,” Pastner told Sporting News in June. “We’re going to put the best on the floor. We’ll manage it. We’re going to play fast.”